


deepest griefs and darkest nights

by Anonymous



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Self-Destruction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:02:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22748245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: How could there be a future without his sister? How could there anything other than this endless present that still hurt more than it didn’t?Oberyn Martell grieves.
Relationships: Elia Martell & Oberyn Martell, Oberyn Martell/Ellaria Sand
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17
Collections: Anonymous





	deepest griefs and darkest nights

Time had blurred together after the war.

He couldn’t remember what he’d said or done in the immediate aftermath of hearing the news about Elia, just the shock and the grief and the fury that had flooded through him. The next months hadn’t been much better. Flashes of rage and bitter words, loud arguments with Doran, fist fights with anyone that would fight him. Drinking. Lots of the last one.

He’d drunk and he’d drunk and he’d drunk some more. Not wine, but black tar rum bought from sailors at the docks, repulsive but exactly what he’d needed to do what he needed – get drunk without enjoying the process, without betraying Elia’s memory through any fleeting enjoyment. Not for taste, not for relaxation, not out of any misguided pursuit of happiness – after all, what happiness could there be in a world without Elia?

Ultimately, it had been Sarella, just barely four years old by then, who’d dragged him away from his wallowing in his own misery, at least a little – she’d toddled over to him and tugged at his sleeve insistently until he’d dragged himself to his feet and followed her to the corner of the room she’d claimed as her own.

Obara and Nymeria and even Tyene had been old enough to know what was going, old enough to realize that what he wanted was to not speak to anyone at all, young enough to believe that was what he should do. But Sarella had been four and determined and demanded attention, so he’d dragged himself up to look at what she’d wanted to show him, even though looking at her hurt – _Rhaenys wasn’t yet four, Rhaenys would never be four –_ and to his surprise, when she’d pointed at a section of a book about Dorne before Nymeria, he’d found himself smiling. Precocious little Sarella, already brilliant, already having devoured countless books meant for people her age when she’d first begun to teach herself how, too clever to not be bored with them now, and still a little too young to not need a little help with histories such as the one to which she’d pointed. So he’d scooped her onto his lap and started to explain the context of House Nymeros Martell before the Nymeros.

He and Elia had both always loved reading. When they’d been children, she had read more and he had read faster and they’d taken turns reading aloud to each other whenever one of them was otherwise occupied. Between them, they’d read half the books in Dorne by the time he’d left for Essos. Reading to Sarella…for the first time, he could think about his sister without feeling like his heart was being ripped apart all over again.

Tyene and Nymeria and Obara had followed their little sister’s lead, Obara more hesitantly, all of them asking for help with small things, and it had helped and it had hurt and if his heart had been healing, it hadn’t been the way bones healed stronger, but the way shards of a pot fit together, never the same as before it had shattered. Not long after, Ellaria had come back into his life and pulled him a little further out of those darkest days, and about a year after that, she had told him she was with child. He remembered that clearly enough. He’d stared wordlessly at his lover, unable to understand. For all that every word was clear, he hadn’t been able to comprehend how the whole of it was possible.

He still couldn’t.

How could there be a future without his sister? How could there anything other than this endless present that still hurt more than it didn’t?

But now he sat at the edge of Ellaria’s bed, dimly aware that his elder daughters still waited outside, and his all but wife settled the sleeping infant into his arms. His hands felt clumsy and stiff – they could hold spears and brew poisons, write and paint and carve, stroke Ellaria’s hair and correct his squire’s grip, all with as much ease as breathing, yet he couldn’t hold his newborn daughter.

Just like he hadn’t been able to hold Elia.

He should have been there, should have protected her, should have done _something._ He might have died, had he been there, and she alongside him, but at least neither of them would have been alone, and he wouldn’t have to be here in a world without her, a world where nothing felt right and even holding this tiny weight seemed impossible. But Ellaria murmured, “That’s it,” and Oberyn’s arms had somehow shifted to hold the child securely to his chest. He couldn’t hold her, but he was.

He glanced back at Ellaria, just long enough to take in the sheen of perspiration plastering strands of dark hair to her face and the sweetly encouraging smile, then back at their daughter.

Elia was still there, everywhere. Her laughter rang out in the morning, twining with the sept’s tolling bells, and her screams carried along the night winds. She was there in the way Nymeria sharpened his spear like Elia herself had sometimes done when he’d entertained her, and in the flight of Tyene’s deft fingers over pieces of embroidery. She was there in the way Obara lifted Sarella to show her things and the way Sarella ate oranges. And now, she was there in how her niece trusted Oberyn enough to sleep peacefully in his arms.

How could she be at rest, he’d wondered then and wondered now and would forever, when he could see her so clearly, anywhere and everywhere he looked.

“Elia,” he said abruptly as he looked down at his newest child, and his voice was strained and desperate, leaving no room for argument. Her eyes were closed, so he couldn’t tell if they looked like his sister’s had, and it would be months until he would know if she had her smile, but she was tiny and beautiful and _his._ “Her name is Elia.”

His eyes burned. His throat ached.

He’d never been devout and now less than ever. But he couldn’t help but thank the gods that the babe in his arms was Ellaria’s, Ellaria, who mattered to him, who he might love – though how he could know that when, save for his daughters, he’d only loved three people in his life?

He couldn’t ever name a child by a woman he’d barely known after his beloved sister. He couldn’t ever name his first child after Elia’s death anything other than in her honour. So in another world, he’d have no more children, because both things could not simultaneously be true with a woman he didn’t love, and how could he love in a world without Princess Elia Nymeros Martell? She was the sun.

He hadn’t held Obara when she’d been a baby, nor told Nymeria stories, nor tickled Tyene, nor rocked Sarella to sleep. But he’d bounced little Rhaenys, who’d so resembled her mother, on his knee as they sat by Elia’s bedside to keep her company and it had felt just like when he’d been young and staying inside to entertain his sister when she’d been sick, reading out loud to her the books she couldn’t find a comfortable way to hold while lying in bed, just as she had read aloud to him when he’d carried her on his back on hikes. Now circumstances had aligned just so to allow him the daughter he held, and he could, would, had to do it right.

He looked back at Ellaria. She smiled at him again.

“Elia,” she agreed. “A good name.”

“Yes,” he said. “The best.”


End file.
